No Smoking.....PLEASE.

If you think this is a blog about some thoughtless person smoking in public and blowing smoke at a non-smoker you are not correct. . .

This is about a van that, after $200 in repairs on the brake system, started smoking, stuttering and got nasty fast....on a major road in a town where EVERYBODY is in a hurry and thinks they are more imporant than anybody else.

The van, mine. The smoke...real and acrid and filling the van. I pulled into the turning lane that goes nowhere and stopped the van I thought was on fire and hopped out. Thankfully, I was coming HOME from work and MB was not with me (I drop him off, daddy picks him up) so I did not have to worry about him. So here I am, in the middle of the street, hood up, me wearing a skirt (gasp for those of you who really know me) and I am trying to figure out where the problem is. I pretty much know, because I added transmission fluid the other day when I checked the transmission fluid and it was bone dry....BONE DRY...but apparently I added it to the brake fluid because, though I would like to THINK I am car savvy, I am not. So the brakes were going out and I found out that I need another $800 to fix the damage I did (working on it), but this was not the brakes....nooooooooope. New pads and rotors after the shimmy stop I did on the way to work after dropping MB off that scared me half to death. No...This was transmission, which is REALLY bone dry now because though I though I fed it juice, I surely did not. I had 3/4 bottle of transmission fluid left so I put it in where the brake guy told me it should go (where was he when I needed him ??). Does anybody stop????
please....will somebody stop.....
please.
p l e a s e?????

Sure. A friend of mine from MOPs stops and offers to help, but she's about as mechanically inclinded as I am. She stops as I am trying to find a funnel small enough to put the transmission fluid into the CORRECT resevoir. She is a total blessing....she goes and gets her mechanically inclined husband to come help me.

While she pulls away, a police officer decides to stop (I think he thought we crashed) and asks if he can call me a tow truck or did I think I could get the van off the street...Um...thanks officer, wanna help push?

TOTALLY on the brink of tears, I tell him he needs to give me a quick second b/c I'm trying NOT to burst out crying at this point...wisely, he backed off, told me he would get behind the van and when I thought I could try to move it he would escort me into the parking lot beyond the light I'm broken down at. Gee...thanks.

So I look for a funnel, and necessity being the mother of invention, I improvise and use old Sunday School leader guide to fashion a small tipped funnel and pour in the transmission fluid and hobble my minivan into the parking lot.

Jr. comes and escorts me to the Dollar General across the street so I can get some more transmisison fluid and then recommends I take it to a mechanic in the morning. I get home....tired, stressed and weary in time to make dinner.

So I take the van to the mechanic today (2 days later...too much trauma, now I can talk about it) and he specializes in transmissions...and he tells me THERE IS NOTHING NOTHING wrong with my transmission. what what what??? So we take it out for a spin and all the odd stuff it was doing is gone. ZIP....nada...behaves almost like a van with only 100,000 miles on it, not it's 110,500 miles.

So, my theory, God fixed my van. Thanks! I needed the break. Thanks to Jr. and Tina and all who kept me cool...to officer not-so-helpful for not making me cry or pay for a tow truck...
and to my van, may you ever be a non-smoking vehicle!

MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY....MOOOOONAY!!

Sing it with me kids......

Ok, maybe you don't know the song.

I like money. Do you like money? I don't LOVE it, but it sure is nice to get some extra sometimes. I really like to spend money too...spoil people, celebrate, eat out, buy clothes for MB...give it away to organizations I believe in including our church. Like everybody else, I need more.

I recently got an "incentive" reward from work and I have to say, it felt goooooooooooddddddd. I really like being told "you are doing a good job" and I really really like it when they say that AND hand you money at the same time. Oh the sunshine that followed my day yesterday when I discovered in our monthly incentive meeting that I got some extra moola.

DH asked what were were going to do to celebrate.... I'm such a romantic, can you guess what I said....go ahead, guess.

If you really really know me you know I told him we were paying off a bill. That is just what I did too. LOL.... I really want to be out of debt so nobody has control over me...nobody.

so sing with me....Money , money, money, money......MOOHHHHHHNNNNAAAAYY.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get this kind of incnetive every month and we should be out of debt in ....oh...4 years or so. LOL

SO thanks work, I am glad you are happy with me...I'm pretty happy with you too.